To close Women’s Month this year, the Muholi Art Institute (MAI) will host the first Trans Summit, a gathering that places transgender women at the heart of the conversation.
The event runs from 29 to 31 August 2025 at The Edward Hotel in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.
Inspired by the vision of internationally acclaimed visual activist Zanele Muholi, the Muholi Art Institute is a dynamic space dedicated to fostering creativity, critical dialogue, and cultural exchange.
The Trans Summit will bring together trans women to share their visual narratives, build new connections, and strengthen existing ones. It aims to affirm a trans-femme community that is too often unheard, unrecognised, and marginalised.
“For the longest time, transgender women existed but were excluded from opportunities, paid less than their worth, and mostly deprived of the freedom to be,” said summit organiser Yaya Mavundla.
Building on the Legacy of Brave Beauties
The summit builds on more than a decade of work by Professor Zanele Muholi. Fifteen years ago, Muholi began collaborating with trans and queer bodies in Umlazi, Durban, with participants such as Le Sishi and Minenhle Mbatha.
On 1 January 2012, Muholi, Sishi and Mbatha launched the Brave Beauties project with a series of photographs at Durban’s North Beach.
Every New Year’s Day since then has marked another chapter in the ongoing Brave Beauties beach collaborations, cementing the project as a powerful symbol of queer visibility.
Tackling Urgent Issues
The Trans Summit will address pressing issues facing trans women, including:
The Trans Summit will address issues of visibility, representation, gender markers, trans advocacy, hormone replacement, surgery, healthcare, education, and employment, amongst other urgent matters affecting trans women daily.
While the programme is ambitious, organisers believe the summit will establish a strong foundation for future collaborations, continuing Muholi’s pioneering work that began privately in 2012 and has since expanded through the Muholi Art Institute.
Powerful Voices and Leaders
The programme will include keynote speaker Steve Letsike, Deputy Minister of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, as well as Sazi Jali, Brave Beauties participant and founder-director of Trans Hope (the first trans organisation in KwaZulu-Natal), and Aluta Humbane, musician, activist, and Brave Beauties participant.
Importantly, the Summit is designed so that Brave Beauties participants are not only speakers but also central to planning and decision-making.
“This summit is a right to write, to advocate, and to demand what is just for trans lives,” said Mavundla. “Its purpose, rooted in the legacy of Brave Beauties, circles back to the essence Humbane expressed in 2013, how their existence queered public space and continues to do so thirteen years later.”
A Time to Reflect
Looking ahead, Muholi highlighted that 2026 will mark several major milestones in South Africa’s history:
- 70 years since the 1956 Women’s March to Pretoria
- 50 years since the 1976 Youth Uprising in Soweto and other townships
- 20 years of Muholi’s acclaimed Faces and Phases series of portraits of black lesbian women
“It is time to take stock and reflect on where we come from, and what the status quo is,” said Muholi.
This first Trans Summit forms part of a trilogy of conferences hosted by the MAI in August 2025. The weekend of 21–23 August saw the second Black Women in Photography Conference, while the Trans Summit coincides with the Men’s Conference II, hosted in Cape Town.
